Something for extremist religious people to consider: you live by your Bible, you may die by your Bible
By: Billy Glover
It seems there are a few extremist "Christians" who have nothing to do, no other interests in life, than to constantly write the same letter to editors saying that America was founded by Christians as a Christian nation and with laws based on Christianity.
A perfect illustration of such a narrow, tangential view of religion is in today's local Gannett newspaper. In the cartoon "Mutt" the dogs have climbed a lighthouse, a LONG climb, and they look down and all around them for miles, and of all the things to see, one dog, says, "Look! There's my chewy toy."
The assumption of these fanatics is that America is great only because of their religion and the rules from their religious book, the Bible, or Koran, etc. Now the facts are clear that these people are wrong, just as most people's understanding, or lack of understanding of the Bible and the Constitution are wrong. If America were to "live" by the assumed words of the most used translation of the original words of the Bible and the "original intent' Constitution, as opposed to the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights and Amendments, we would still have slavery, and women, blacks, and even white men who don't own property would not vote, etc. So we really are a smarter people than these religious fanatics. So it is probable that their 'cause" would be lost if we really believed that we had to honor their version of Christianity.
In fact, that is the irony they don't see. Their 'cause" will be lost, the war will be lost, even if they win some battles-such as getting a meaningless slogan on our money (In god We Trust), etc. As another saying heard in more than one movie goes, "they can't handle the truth." They insult their god when they claim that how we started was the way that god would want a nation or people to live. With slaves. With women as property, etc.
And what churches need to learn fast is that if they insist on pushing tangential issues of their particular religion/beliefs, forcing all citizens to abide by their ideas, not by choice or conviction but by force of laws, such unethical and incompetent rules will be ignored and that will result in people ignoring the other parts of a church's teaching, and will in a sense kill that church.
Glance at our history. Christians bought and sold slaves, using their Bible to show that that was their god's will and had been approved. Mostly non-religious people forced the end of slavery. The churches divided to form churches whose only difference was that they promoted racial segregation-not by choice but by law, which was only ended by mostly non-religious people opposing those laws and the preachers and churches that promoted them. That is why Mormons, after once having a sudden revelation that their views of marriage were "wrong' and ended polygamy (in order to become a state), had a sudden revelation that they needed to accept blacks as full members, and the Southern Baptists had to apologize to black Americans for having been so wrong in their understanding of the Bible.
And how do we explain that the most immoral people, the ones who are destroying "family values" are the ones preaching about those values and claiming/projecting their "sins" on others, by accusing other political party members and unreligious people of what they are guilty of? Read the nespapers and see what political party has leaders who seek prostitutes (Senator Vitter of LA) and support mistresses (Senator Ensign of NV and the governor of South Carolina-who left his sons on Father's Day to fly off for a sexual encounter in another country).
Yet these hypocrites say it is homosexual marriage that will destroy our families. Either these politicians should shut up or change their ways, or they may kill their political party and values of that party that are good.
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